law
Category: Other
Updated: 27 Nov 2017
wrong convictions
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Created byjojo
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Perry Harder of Winnipeg
was shot several times in the chestThe RCMP said three hair samples
found in Driskell's van were Harder's,
and that evidence convicted him.The federal justice minister at the time
quashed the conviction and ordered a new trial.The inquiry's final report, released in February 2007, said the jury in Driskell's trial was "seriously misled"James Driskell speaks to reporters in April 2006 during a meeting in Winnipeg before the inquiry into his wrongful murder conviction.Henry was convicted on ten counts of sexual assault the basis of weak identification evidence.Attacks similar to Henry's alleged crimes continued after he was incarceratedthe Vancouver police re-opened 25 unsolved sexual assaults that took place between 1983 and 1988 in the same areas of Vancouver and the assaults for which Henry was convicted.the British Columbia Court of Appeal quashed Henry's conviction and entered acquittals on all charges.16-year-old Barbara Stoppel, a counter server at a Donut Shop was found strangled in the women’s washroom of the storeWitnesses ultimately identified Sophonow based on photo lineups that, many years later, would be revealed as having been badly flawed and conducted in a biased fashion.police announced they had found and arrested the man who had become known as the “Cowboy Killer.”Sophonow eventually became persuaded that he had killed Stoppel and had blacked out afterward, remembering little of the crime. He confessed this to police.Having spent a total of four years behind bars, and having lived most of his adult life under the shadow of an ongoing murder prosecution, Sophonow was exonerated and received a full apology from the Manitoba government.12-year-old Lynne Harper's remains were foundwitnesses saw Steven Truscott cycling with Lynne Harper through the countryside (2 days before she was found)Truscott was found guilty and sentenced to a death sentencethe federal government commuted his sentence to life imprisonment with a 10-year parole eligibility periodthe Supreme Court of Canada re-examined the case but found it to be properly judgedTruscott was paroledBecause of new laws and rights, the federal government appointed retired Québec Court of Appeal Justice Fred Kaufman to review Truscott’s Section 690 application.A special five-judge panel of the Court of Appeal began hearing the fresh evidence.A year later, Truscott was outright acquitted, in part because a fair retrial would be impossible so many years after the fact.He was awarded $6.5 million in compensation by the Ontario government.
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